"Read more."
It wasn't the first new year's resolution. In fact, it was the fourth. But Lucy Wingman thought it was the easiest one to start. (First was "tidy up more!!!!" written in her special red pen, highlighted and underlined, but she knew it would always be there, every year. Second was eating properly, third was… I'm getting off topic. I'm supposed to be telling you a story, and I thought that Lucy choosing to finally work her new year's resolutions in the middle of January was a good place to start.)
Another one of her resolutions- the third, funnily enough- was to be more sociable. So, she thought she'd include both of these into one project, and she concluded that to do that she was going to have to take a trip to the local library.
She had a day off on the Sunday. She dressed herself in a sweet little navy blue dress that she loved to wear; a brown leather jacket and she brought a handbag with her, in case she found anything interesting. She had no idea what to expect. She'd probably find a small book about the British isles and would have a droning yet politely fulfilling conversation with an old woman.
That time she'd entered the library (It wasn't the first; she'd been there before as a child, the kind of trip her school would do when they didn't have enough money to spare, but felt sorry for all the good students constantly being badgered about award ceremonies and their parents having to pay for them to go to the cinema- I'm getting off topic again…), was the first time she saw Jeremy. She was hardly paying attention to him at that moment- she was more focused on the task at hand: to find a book to read.
After browsing around the various genre sections for a while, giggling quietly to herself about passers by, and trying to work out if the oddly designed carpet on the floor was actually a pattern, she ended up falling upon the romance genre. Lucy was not usually the one for that sort of thing. She had been in relationships before, but they were just as boring as she found the television and literal interpretations. But one book title enticed her the most:
'Hybristophilia.'
Lucy knew what it meant.
She picked up the novel enthusiastically, and turned to the blurb. There was the definition: "sexual attraction to criminals." It was about a 20 year old girl called Daisy in 1950s America who ran away from home and ended up seeing a young boy attack a shop assistant and take their money. The action left her bedazzled, and they fall in love, committing crimes and having sex in as many places as possible.
Lucy was transfixed. It seemed so odd: placed in between 'His Beautiful Smile' and 'Handsome Singer', but it didn't seem odd in the sense of it being in alphabetical order- of course. She held the book confidently in her slender hands and knew what was next: to socialise.
Apprehensive, she looked around. The library was suddenly empty.
Slightly dismayed, Lucy found her way towards the main desk. And there he was, carefully making his way through a database on the computer of all the books in the facility, muttering under his breath as he read. It took awhile for him to notice Lucy standing before him, smiling politely. He looked up slowly, staring blankly at her.
"Hi," Lucy enthusiastically announced.
"Hello…," the receptionist replied slowly. His attention turned to Lucy's book. "You're going to take that out?"
She nodded, handing it over to him. With most of the precision he could muster, Jeremy stamped the front page of the book, then handed it back to her.
"Remember, you have to give the book back in one week, or at least renew your time period. If you don't return it, I will have to fine you."
"Of course," Lucy muttered miserably. Talking to him was like talking to a robot.
When Lucy turned away from him, placing the book into her handbag, something happened.
"I'm Jeremy, by the way," he suddenly announced, his voice suddenly sweet and upbeat. Was it Lucy's optimism talking when she realised he sounded warm and kind, like a normal human being? At the time, she wasn't too sure.
She immediately turned back around, a surprised smile on her face.
"Lucy."
Jeremy actually gave her a small smile in return, but then immediately moved back to the computer, his stony expression returning on his enigmatic face.
Slightly satisfied to the say the least, Lucy walked out of the building, glad she could tick two resolutions off of her list.
Kind of.
As you can probably tell at this point, Lucy was a scatterbrain. She often came in late to work (she was a history teacher) from forgetting her keys, or neglect an important date on the horizon. So, as you might expect, Lucy lost the book. It was definitely somewhere in her flat, but it seemed impossible to find with clothes strewn everywhere and objects dumped in odd places on a bizarre whim.
It was the next Sunday, exactly a week after Lucy had taken a trip to the library, at exactly the same time- down to the same second- when there was a knock on Lucy's apartment door. Usually she'd have to buzz one of her friends or a member of her family in, so she guessed it was one of her neighbours.
She'd been deciding whether or not to tidy her bedroom at the time, when she was pleased about the sudden distraction and practically ran to the door. She opened it.
It was Jeremy.
He was staring at her, straight in the eyes (they were the same height), his expression stony and sour. The whole encounter surprised Lucy, and she exclaimed:
"Jeremy! How did you get in?"
He gazed loftily down the stairs of the flat.
"The door was open."
He paused quickly, before adding in a demanding hiss:
"You haven't returned 'Hybristophilia' by Yazmin Aerwood, published on 18 October 1999."
"Oh! That's right. I can't find it…"
"Did you take it anywhere?" He demanded.
"No. It's definitely somewhere in here."
He looked down the corridor and immediately scowled.
"You're very messy," he commented bluntly.
"Excuse you!" Lucy instantly exclaimed, eyebrows arching at the top of her face.
"Can I come in?" He asked loftily, then barged through anyway, knocking a befuddled Lucy backwards.
"Hey!" She demanded.
"I need to find this book!" Jeremy shouted in response, his voice fading slightly as he walked away and then into the living room. "It needs to be returned!"
Lucy immediately chased after him, both annoyed and amused by this small, strange man.
"I haven't finished it yet!"
Then, shockingly bitterly, he screeched: "then you have to renew it!"
It all seemed too much about a book. Maybe Jeremy used to be in the army, or a policeman, or something? He was clearly deranged for some reason. All about this book? Was he like this every time one wasn't given back on time?
As he pulled apart her sofa, Lucy decided to ask:
"Who employed you?"
Jeremy was silent, thoroughly checking inside the pillows before he finally replied:
"My aunt."
"Does she like you working there?" She asked.
"She's dead."
"Oh, I'm sorry."
Jeremy shrugged.
"Don't be. I don't think about her much."
"Why's that?"
Jeremy shrugged again. The sofa completely scoured through, he rushed towards the drawers underneath the television.
"No, don't, I…" Lucy started, but it was too late. Jeremy was pulling porn DVD after porn DVD out of the drawers, his eyes scanning blankly over the covers. To give him credit, he placed them ever so neatly in the centre of the room- alike to how he'd placed each pillow cover, pillow and sofa compartment neatly at the side of the room, despite not having actually fixed the beige, second hand piece of furniture back together again.
And so the afternoon continued. Jeremy piecing apart every item in Lucy's house until he eventually fell upon the novel: of all places, it was in her washing basket. Jeremy was apprehensive about picking it out of the basket at first, blushing at the sight of Lucy's pants. But he enthusiastically yanked it out nonetheless, grinning sadistically at Lucy as he showed her the front cover.
"Thank you," she muttered, still uncertain of how to grasp her thoughts around this situation.
"Do you still want to read it?"
"Yes."
"I'll go away and renew the time, then. I'll be back with it soon."
He was. In astonishing speed, Jeremy managed to walk to and from the library in under quarter of an hour. When he returned, he handed 'Hybristophilia' to her with a healthy grin. He apologised for earlier, (Lucy and cleaned up the majority of her flat since he'd left) and they parted on good terms.
That week, Lucy kept the book safe and made sure to read as much as she could every evening. Funnily enough, she managed to finish it on the day she was due to return it to the library.
This time round when Lucy visited the library and arrived at the front desk, she began to take in Jeremy's features in more detail. His lips looked plush and soft, and his eyelashes appeared unfairly delicate. Why did a boring library guy look more luscious than her, a kind girl who had to resort to fiction in order to find sexual gratification?
She blushed when his calming blue eyes suddenly caught hers. She looked down at the floor quickly, then back at him. He was almost smiling.
"How can I help you?" He asked gently, gazing at her through his oval shaped grey glasses.
"I was wondering," Lucy said, gazing politely at him, "if you had any recommendations."
"Recommendations?"
"Yes. For me."
This made Jeremy smile.
"From one book?"
"I have a specific type."
This made him raise one eyebrow. Interest filled his body language, and he leaned forwards across the desk.
"I think you'd like Isle 3, find 'We Hid Her In The Shadows'."
Lucy did as he told her. She really enjoyed the book Jeremy recommended: a graphic novel this time, based on an old poem. It detailed a passionate marriage that slowly fell apart- so much so that the husband killed the wife, and hid her in the shadows: the back of his ginormous mansion. Once every week, he'd sneak out and find her body, caressing her hair and kissing her cheek. Obviously this had to stop at some point, and soon she was just a skeleton. The husband killed himself. Lucy found it all so riveting. The artwork was insane too, all in black and white. The only thing coloured were the wife's lips, which the poet often repeated descriptions of: "pink like a flamingo, striking yet strange." She'd read it all that afternoon, and immediately hurried back up to the reception desk.
Jeremy wasn't there. An old woman was sitting at the computer instead.
"Hello, dear? Do you want to take that out?" She asked sweetly, eyeing the book.
"No, no, actually, I… I was talking to Jeremy earlier? I wanted to see him."
"Oh, his shift's over now. He won't be back until tomorrow."
Lucy nodded quietly. She placed the book back in its place and made her way home.
Lucy realised later that evening that she'd forgotten to buy milk earlier in the day. She desperately wanted to settle down with a warm drink and couldn't stand straight coffee or tea. She thought she could just leave it until tomorrow but the temptation quickly became unbearable. She shoved her coat and shoes on and left into the darkness.
As she followed the usual way to the corner shop, she was surprised to find something in the pavement. She picked it up the rectangle object and held it up in the street lamp light. She couldn't believe it. It was 'Hybristophilia'. What was it doing there? Had someone else taken it out and lost it? She remembered how Jeremy would be so angry if he found that a book from his library would be missing. She suddenly realised that she didn't know where he lived, and she wouldn't be able to go to the library at this time of night. She decided to place the book into her handbag and carry on making her way to the corner shop. She'd return it tomorrow.
Later on, she was walking passed the park, and noticed something strange. There was graffiti on the pavement but it was hardly at all decipherable. But she moved one step and suddenly the words did look like English. She noticed that the graffiti was like a pattern, but when you look at it from just the right angle, the unnecessary parts of the pattern are covered by the shadows from the trees, and you can read the writing. In yellow, it read:
Go to the library.
First, this book, and now a direct message? What was going on?
Lucy considered phoning the police, but she realised that a book and some odd graffiti wouldn't be enough to qualify calling them. And what if it was something innocent, anyway? So, she went to the library.
As soon as she got there, she saw the body lying straight on the ground. She rushed over. She didn't know who the person was.
"Hello?" She asked desperately. "Are you alright?"
Her hand instinctively went to the man's chest. Her hand returned wet. And red.
"Blood," she whispered in a gasp.
She was about to pull out her phone, when someone emerged from the shadows. His eyes stared at her viciously through the darkness. In his right hand, he held a knife, and both the knife and his hand were plastered in blood.
Lucy couldn't help but enjoy this scene unfold before her. And Jeremy could tell she was secretly loving this. He smirked.
"There's no use trying to help him," he explained bluntly. "He's lost 'Fun At The Farm', and now he has to live with the consequences."
Quickly, Lucy looked back down at the body. Killed for losing a kid's book?
Then, she turned back to Jeremy. He was drawing closer. He walked slowly until she could feel his warm breath on his face. Lucy knew why she didn't want to move, and she blushed. She hated it.
"How do you feel, Lucy?" He asked loftily, fiddling with the knife.
He knew. He knew Lucy's worst secret that she'd hid for years. Her first choice of novel was obvious enough. Not to sound cliché, but while all her friends loved Leonardo DiCaprio (or Winona Ryder), she enjoyed mooning over Hannibal Lector or Norman Bates. She'd despised it, felt self conscious about it, pretended to be some cute, innocent girl to play off the insanity inside. Jeremy, standing so close in front of her with a knife, a dead body behind her, blood spilling to the ground, was too much. She couldn't let these dreadful dreams become a reality: that's why she owned so many films. Her desires were not acceptable. Yet, here they were.
"I can't do this," she whispered.
"Why not?" Jeremy asked quietly. He didn't sound demanding. In fact, he seemed quite fragile.
"I," Lucy replied, "I need time. This is such a huge leap, I…"
Suddenly, Lucy felt a pair of soft, warm lips on her cheek. She sighed and closed her eyes. Jeremy pulled away.
"Take as much time as you need," he informed her calmly. "You don't need to renew it, or anything."
Lucy decided to kiss him too, once, gently on the cheek. She smiled softly, kind of admiring how he'd cleverly lead her here, to show her this.
"Oh, that reminds me…," she announced.
She pulled out 'Hybristophilia' from her handbag and gave it to Jeremy. He smiled and nodded, satisfied.
"How did you know I was going to have to go about and get milk?" She asked curiously.
"Oh," Jeremy said. He reached into a bag and took out the milk. "I could tell by your amount of coffee and tea bags that you loved those drinks. I wasn't sure if milk would be enough to get you out of the house, but, it was."
Lucy grimaced. She felt like a cheap slut.
"It's fine," Jeremy assured her. Her held her free hand.
"I have to go," she reminded him.
Jeremy nodded.
"Of course."
As she walked away, Lucy wondered if she would ever have the courage to see Jeremy again. It wasn't in her new year's resolutions- to find a boyfriend. But did it have to be? Things in her mind happening before her made her feel scared, though. What if Jeremy would unintentionally get her into trouble? She concluded, then, that this was going to take a lot of time to think about. Managing to socialise and read a book was one thing, but dating a psychopathic maniac librarian was another.